Anesthesiologists locked out of jobs Anesthesiologists locked out of jobs (November 26, 2004)

Disagreement with hospital arose over insurance

By Julie O'Shea

A group of veteran anesthesiologists was escorted out of El Camino Hospital by city police officers Monday after several attempts to work out a contract dispute between doctors and administrators failed.

They were replaced with nine anesthesiologists, who abruptly left their jobs at Washington Hospital in Fremont to sign three-year employment deals with El Camino over the weekend.

Doctors at El Camino said they were blindsided by the move. They said they tried many times to reopen negotiations with the hospital last week but suspect administrators had no intention of trying to work things out.

"People are really discouraged. It's really sad," said Dr. Paul Goehner, one of El Camino's 19 anesthesiologists removed from the hospital Monday.

Goehner said he and his colleagues were willing to compromise with administrators, but from the hospital's perspective, "we were greedy, and they didn't want to deal with us."

Hospital officials, however, said they were only reacting to a memo from the anesthesiology group, which stated that the doctors were cutting back their time in the operating room and would only be performing emergency procedures. According to hospital spokesperson Judy Twitchell, the letter went on to say that the doctors would stay on until the end of November or until a new set of anesthesiologists could be secured, whichever came first.

"It seemed to be a reasonable thing to err on the side of caution," Twitchell said. "We took them at their word."

Noah Griffin, a spokesperson for the anesthesiologists, said the hospital is not telling the whole story. The doctors' memo, Griffin said, was in response to a letter sent by the hospital Nov. 9. Griffin said that letter basically gave physicians an ultimatum: resolve the insurance disagreement by Nov. 19 or be replaced.

"You don't give ultimatums. ... That's like putting a gun to a person's head," Griffin said.

Griffin added that doctors were and still are interested in negotiating with the hospital administration but felt they were left with few bargaining chips.

El Camino's letter told doctors "in the event the event we cannot come to an agreement by Nov. 19, the hospital will need to pursue other options in order to insure an exclusive agreement for anesthesia services by term's end."

Two days before the Nov. 19 deadline, the hospital's board of directors held an emergency closed session to discuss the matter. And on Nov. 20, the hospital brought in a new batch of doctors and relieve the former ones.

Problems first arose a few months ago, when the hospital put pressure on anesthesiologists to sign a contract that would force them to accept payments from the same insurance carriers the hospital uses.

Goehner said some of these carriers weren't reimbursing the doctors enough, and the anesthesiologists would bill patients the amount not covered by insurance. Goehner said the doctors needed to bill them in order to make their practice viable.

But patients started to complain about the extra charges, and the hospital board told doctors they wanted a compromise on the matter by the end of the year or they would be forced to bring in new anesthesiologists.

El Camino was willing to give $415,000 a year for the group to share to make up for their losses, which is comparable to what other area hospitals offer their anesthesiologists, Twitchell said. The doctors didn't think the offer was good enough.

After weeks of butting heads, the hospital decided to end contract talks and brought aboard new doctors last Saturday. Twitchell said the hospital informed the members of El Camino's longstanding anesthesiology group then that their services were no longer needed. According to Twitchell, the police were brought in to keep the peace. @email:E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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